"Muslims need to be like Jews"
INsights 076, Friday 9th May 2025
"Muslims need to be like Jews"
INsights 076, Friday 9th May 2025
Yesterday I read a reflection by Mohammed Nizami, a London-based thinker whose efforts and teachings I very much admire and respect. If our generation does manage to get itself in order in pursuing God's cause in a sensible and effective manner, then to my mind there is very little doubt that he will have had a lot to do with it, especially in the crucial areas of establishing sound foundations and developing a cogent narrative for the mission.
I rarely, if ever, copy and paste from elsewhere for INsights, but on this occasion I felt compelled to make an exception. Because this is no ordinary piece. It's pure gold.
Read, reflect, enjoy... and let me know what you think!
~~~
Muslims and Causes
by Mohammed Nizami
"Muslims should..."
Please.
Muslims aren't getting anything meaningful done.
Why? Muslims have no cause.
That is the uncomfortable truth that few are willing to state outright, yet it sits beneath the surface of nearly every conversation about identity, activism, and representation.
There are two reasons for this condition, and both are structural, not incidental.
First, Muslimness does not signify anything specific beyond Arabic terms like Allah and Muhammad. It does not function as a coherent ideology, a civilisational programme, or a worldview.
Often, it refers to a set of sentimental attachments, a loose cultural identity made up of inherited rituals, ethnic customs, community nostalgia, and fragments of religious vocabulary.
It is not tied to any clearly defined political or social objective, nor does it carry the discipline, structure, or clarity required for long-term collective action. When people invoke the term “Muslim,” they are usually referring to a broad and culturally diverse population united more by how they are seen by others, as outsiders or threats, than by any internally defined and directed purpose. It is an identity without a direction and a label that obscures more than it clarifies.
Second, the condition of the Western Muslim is fundamentally post-imperial. The communities that now form the Western Muslim presence are the downstream result of empires, both Islamic and colonial, that collapsed. These communities reflect the intersecting legacies of Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, and British, French, and Dutch imperial systems, but without inheriting any of the intellectual, strategic, or administrative architecture that once made those civilisations functional.
Instead, they carry a memory of former glory and a deep sense of historical grievance, often expressed through cultural conservatism, diasporic longing, and political caution.
Their identity is not forged through conquest, initiative, or creative ambition, but through displacement, marginalisation, and the survivalist instincts of immigrant life.
What emerges, then, is a kind of cautious respectability, one that values integration into capitalist structures and material recognition far more than autonomy, sovereignty, or strategic direction.
As a result, when Muslims in the West organise, protest, or mobilise, they do so from a place of reaction rather than initiative. Their political activity tends to be episodic, emotionally charged, and rooted in a sense of moral injury, not strategic planning or transformational ambition.
Their language is that of protest, not power; their instinct is defensive, not offensive. They do not seek to shape the conditions around them but to be protected from them. It is the entirely predictable result of historical trauma, displacement, and the absence of a cause that transcends identity politics.
Nevertheless, one repeatedly hears the well-worn claim: “Muslims need to be like Jews.” It is an observation that is as shallow as it is frequent, based on surface comparisons that ignore every meaningful distinction. It is the political equivalent of pointing at a wealthy neighbour and deciding you want what they have without having the slightest sense of what kind of financial acumen, inheritance, infrastructure, and sacrifice that wealth required.
The comparison is seductive because it offers the illusion that all it takes to acquire strategic influence is to want it. But desire without direction is meaningless. Influence without purpose or a preceding plan is pointless. Yet it's what all night time dreams are made of.
And this is where the stark contrast becomes unavoidable. Zionism is a movement with a clearly defined cause. It was forged with a distinct vision, cultivated across generations, built through institutions, and defended with every available tool, from military infrastructure to financial networks, from cultural production to diplomatic strategy. Zionists knew what they wanted. They could name it, draw it, fund it, fight for it, and build it. They operated with ideological coherence, strategic discipline, and long-term patience.
Muslims have none of that because they have no actual cause. The label of 'Muslim' does not furnish them with agreement of what they want, how to achieve it, or even who they are. They are made up of disparate ethnic groups fragmented by ethnicity, sect, class, and identity, and as a result, they lack a centre of gravity.
They have few intellectuals who are certainly not united by a shared doctrine and culture, and 'political minority' activism that oscillates between moral outrage and quiet despair. There is no project, only pain. And pain, when left unorganised, becomes noise in the form of protest.
It is a reflection on the mindset and the condition of a generation that confuses passion for purpose, volume for vision, and visibility for strategic influence. The dominant posture is reactive, not generative; it seeks sympathy rather than sovereignty. Muslims remain caught in the cycle of grievance and unable to transition from victims of history to authors of it. But this is simply because modern Islam has little to offer beyond decreasing vices like drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll. Yet for anyone who already lives a disciplined life, what does modern Islam do for them?
If Muslims genuinely wish to be taken seriously, or want to be like Jews and not simply pitied or included, then quite obviously, they'll need to do what the Zionists did. That means articulating a cause that transcends protest, building communities that endure beyond the emotional life cycle of a crisis, and paying the long, difficult price of strategic discipline. It means moving in silence, cultivating internal trust, and understanding that real power is not declared. It is built, layer by layer, far from the spotlight.
However, it is unlikely to happen. In truth, it cannot. And the reason is that 'Muslimness' fails to signify anything substantial. Over the past two years, I have spent countless hours in conversations and observations with Muslims, all with deliberate focus.
For the overwhelming majority, Islam functions as a cultural inheritance that informs social habits and familial customs rather than a purposeful commitment to a shared worldview or mission. Many engage with a conception of the divine shaped to align with cultural expectations, while others possess little conviction in the God of Abraham at all.
No one seems to be able to articulate the content of God's final message beyond vague moral sentiments, and even then, their responses tend to be indistinguishable from the platitudes of other religions. Even when we strip religion down to its cultural expression in secular life, what remains is a form of identity preoccupied with managing personal obligations such as paying bills, navigating children through institutional schooling, turning up to work, and occasionally performing religious rituals with associated phonemes. When asked what the unifying cause behind this identity is, the only honest answer is that there isn't one.
Looking at the success of others, particularly Jews, without any understanding of the ideological structure, cultural discipline, and historical drive behind it is a wasted gesture. As long as Muslims lack a clearly defined cause, one that they are prepared to suffer for, labour for, and make real sacrifices for, not merely discuss in abstract, they will continue to be sidelined in a world that rewards purpose, coherence, and long-term ambition. The uncomfortable reality is that such a cause remains absent, because modern Islam does not provide one. A 'good Muslim', as it stands, is judged largely as someone who preserves cultural customs and performs routine rituals.
The only way forward is the Abrahamic restoration. It is the mission and the purpose.
~~~
If you've got this far, then take a moment to breathe 😅 then read it all again 😂
On a serious note, if all this vibes with you and you'd like to learn more, check out Mohammed Nizami's website here:
https://abrahamicrestoration.school
That's all for now.
May we become the best that we can become.
Until next time.
Peace.
Iqbal
~~~
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